Firing 600 at NIH was a ‘lowball' threat
The First 100 Days: Health Care
Sen. Tammy Baldwin had some choice words for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about mass firings at the National Institutes of Health over the weekend.
'One of the things he had said prior to being confirmed was that on day one he would get rid of about 600 scientists at NIH,' the Wisconsin Democrat said during POLITICO's First 100 Days: Health Care event Wednesday.
'That was lowballing it, apparently, according to what we've seen in the first weekend that he was actually serving as Secretary of Health and Human Services.'
There were reports of an estimated 1,100 NIH employees fired over the weekend, Baldwin added, although that number seems to be a moving target as workers appeal their terminations.
The NIH cuts were part of a wave of firings affecting roughly 3,600 probationary employees at HHS, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Baldwin called the decision to fire researchers working to find cures and treatments for diseases like cancer, diabetes, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's 'extremely concerning.'
She was disappointed in some of her Republican colleagues, she added, who she believes had doubts about Kennedy, but who 'for some reason, put those on the shelf rather than have that guide their vote.'
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who chairs the Senate health committee and who voted to confirm Kennedy, had secured a pledge from Kennedy to consult the senator on key issues at the health agencies.
'I'll be very interested to ask Dr. Cassidy whether there was consultation this weekend prior to those mass firings and layoffs that we saw throughout the Department of Health and Human Services that will have a devastating impact on the research enterprise,' Baldwin said.
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WASHINGTON WATCH
Lobbyist Chris Collins has a tough job in today's Washington: convincing President Donald Trump and Republicans who control Congress to continue spending billions of dollars to fight infectious diseases.
As president and CEO of the Friends of the Global Fight, an international global health organization that lobbies on behalf of the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Collins is trying to convince Republicans to give the Global Fund $2 billion over three years.
That funding would drive progress against the three infectious diseases that still plague many developing countries.
By the numbers: The Global Fund seeks to raise $18 billion to pay for its health initiatives from 2027 to 2029, which it says will save 23 million lives.
But the Trump administration has frozen most foreign aid, including funding for most types of HIV prevention, and waivers the administration has issued for lifesaving HIV treatment have been slow to make a difference on the ground. The future of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, better known as PEPFAR, which works with the Global Fund, is in question as it approaches its reauthorization deadline next month amid the turmoil.
But Collins, who's long worked in HIV advocacy and was once an appropriations aide to former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is still making his pitch.
How so? If the U.S. could take advantage of new drugs 'and get the best technology that we can get to people on the ground, we're looking at the United States having led the effort to end the three biggest epidemics in the world,' Collins told Carmen.
'That's an incredible legacy for President Trump,' he said.
Collins would like to see the president call for an end to AIDS globally, in the same way he called for an end to AIDS domestically in his first term.
'It's doable. We have the tools in hand now,' he said.
Collins also contends that funding for the Global Fund would fulfill the administration's priorities for foreign aid to make America safer, stronger and more prosperous.
Safer: A third of the Global Fund investment is relevant to pandemic preparedness, Collins said.
Stronger: The Global Fund can operate in fragile environments and help prevent them from becoming more fragile, which could make America more secure, he added.
More prosperous: The Global Fund invests millions of dollars in U.S. corporations that sell the drugs, tests and other technologies to prevent and treat HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, Collins said.
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'Just a breathtakingly cynical use of legal language and procedure,' Kaplan said, adding: 'It's bad enough that legislative leaders regularly abuse the self-funding loophole. We should be closing the loophole, not blowing it wide open for even more opportunities for pay-to-play politics and corruption.' The two-sentence clause Harmon backed would have generally expanded the period that a senator in a four-year term who breaks the caps can keep them off. But the second sentence in the Harmon clause caused the uproar on both sides of the aisle: 'This amendatory Act of the 104th General Assembly is declarative of existing law,' phrasing many lawmakers interpreted to mean that, if passed, could have eliminated Harmon's election board dispute. Sen. Jil Tracy, a Quincy Republican, called the clause 'mind-blowing.' 'The language was brazen,' she said. 'My initial reaction was shock. I couldn't believe the majority would be that brazen.' She said she learned of the clause in the waning hours of the legislative session when a legal staffer told her the proposal would erase Harmon's case before the board. 'That bill would have condoned and made it appropriate to go beyond what the election code allows and to supersede the limits and create a path (to) interpret what President Harmon had done was OK,' said Tracy, a former assistant attorney general who served under both former Republican Jim Ryan and Democrat Lisa Madigan, the former speaker's daughter. 'He still argues what he did was OK, but why do a bill?' asked Tracy, a member of a Senate subcommittee on ethics. At an unrelated appearance in West Chicago on Thursday, Pritzker sought to vouch for Harmon while he said that he and his fellow Democrats in Springfield have sought to clean up a state with a culture of corruption. 'I know that the Senate president doesn't have any intention other than to make the law better,' he said. At the same time, the governor acknowledged he didn't 'know enough about the violations that have been alleged.' Another provision that raised eyebrows in the Harmon-backed legislation would have allowed statewide elected officials and state lawmakers running for federal offices to hold fundraisers on session days and the day before, as long as they're held outside of Sangamon County, which includes Springfield. A statewide ban on such fundraisers was a provision in the 2021 ethics law touted by Pritzker and other top Democrats. The new provision would have benefited Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, Pritzker's two-time running mate who's running for U.S. Senate, and a handful of state legislators who've declared their candidacies for the U.S. House. The candidates also would have been able to transfer money raised on session days for their federal campaigns into their state accounts, as long as they adhered to state contribution limits. Welch, Harmon and Pritzker's office all said they didn't know the origin of the language, which was presented in a brief committee hearing late on the final day of session as an attempt to align state law with rules governing fundraising for federal candidates. But West, giving the overall package its only public airing, couldn't explain how leaving a restriction in place only for Springfield's home county would pass legal muster. There was a feeling that it would be more ethical to keep in-session political fundraisers 'as far away from the state Capitol as possible,' West said. But Rep. Carol Ammons, an Urbana Democrat, called the provision problematic, saying: 'I don't know what difference it makes what county you're in. If you're fundraising while we're in session, you're fundraising while we're in session.' .
